but it wasn't quite so simple for ukraine the truth is ukraine has never been a united country. when world war 2 broke out a large part of western ukraine's population welcomed the german soldiers as liberators from the recently forced upon them soviet rule and openly collaborated with the germans. the real scale of collaboration was not announced for many years after the war but we now know that whole divisions and battalions were formed by ukrainian collaborators such as s.s. c. and not to call and roll into battalions. just in the beginning of the war more than $80000.00 people from college cina region voluntarily enrolled into division s.s. galad seen in a month and a half notorious for their extreme cruelty towards the polish jewish and russian people on the territory of ukraine. members of these military groups came mostly from the organization of ukrainian nationalists b.-o. un founded in 1929 this organization had an ultimate goal of creating an ethnically pure independent ukraine and considered terror an acceptable tool for achieving their ends their official flag was b

not long ago it was russia russia russia now it's ukraine ukraine ukraine partisan hacks media. america's political drama. here. cross talking some real news i'm joined by my guest to me he's a political analyst and editor at innocent the internet media project and in london we crossed alexander material he is a writer on legal affairs as well as the editor in chief of the duran dot com all right gentlemen cross-like rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate alexander let me go to you in london i'm so pleased to have you india on the program here just the 2 of you because it gives you more time to talk about a story that is much more complex and longer than audiences in the west are being given by the mainstream media everyone is talking about the 2016 election well i would go a little bit further back and the very least i go back to 2014 with the illegal overthrow of a democratically elected government with the support of the e.u. and the united states now the predicate of all of this the large the biggest picture of all is nato expansi

love for ukraine. lovely as they are, right? there isn't some terrifically spiritual bond between our countries that supersedes the bonds we have with other countries the only reason we've been supporting them is because they were freaking invaded by russia, right, which is a very unusual thing. up until now on a bipartisan basis, we, the yierkts helped support that country because they were invaded by russia and russia is occupying part of them. we have been helping them keep their country intact while russia is trying to take it. so to the extent we are now no longer supporting ukraine or we are making our support for them contingent on these political favors for president trump for his re-election campaign, it's a radical change in a short period of time in terms of what the u.s. is doing and what are when a our attitude is toward that world-changing event from 2014. and i think now it's becoming clear why or at least it's becoming clear how this all fits together. the "new york times" this weekend

in ukraine gate. and we're going to be a mother we had great people paul martin for good point you know when we crossed arad scandalous articles about him in the washington post by and have a warm august basically they all forgot to mention that he didn't do anything in russia he did everything he knew graeme and so did the d n c and he was i'm sorrier but at least he walked on his specialty he was a political consultant he got millions for that but the bidens look millions for something he didn't understand here showing him because his father's name but he was his father son he didn't understand anything in their street or in energy where did you come to buy them get education in energy star gets you know so the 4th story isn't what i'm going to run into and break from what i understand. knew a lot about pharmaceuticals if you know what i mean we're going to go to a short break here and after a short break we'll continue our discussion and some real news stay with our team. live. oh. please. please.

western oriented ukraine and those who i wouldn't call it a pro russian ukraine i would say a truly independent ukraine having an autonomous its own vision of its own foreign policy and you can about i mean there's we have to get away from this false dichotomy. but these approach western forces have a very tenuous relationship with the west because it's all about what is the west doing for ukraine which is at the forefront at the the ball work of and he russian. and the russian policy to the extent that the west and i think it's clear is not going to support that kind of long term anti what the russian initiative these forces in western ukraine are going to be disillusioned with the west and one already sees this in the statements of current members of parliament for example that maybe we should rename the party servant of the people which is their dance party into servant of the i.m.f. because the i.m.f. really has us by the throat and is never going to let go of this. just one example of the of the true attitude of the west toward you probably would be but you know we would have predict we pr

of ukraine. "the washington post" reported, for example, that it a former senior administration official who were people he discussed the issue with president trump said that the president thought "what we were doing in ukraine was pointless and just aggravating the russians." the official went on to say the president position basically is we should recognize the fact that the russians should be our friend, and who cares about the ukrainians? times" had a similar report, saying that president trump has had harsh words about ukraine, and they are terrible people, he is quoted as having said. they are all corrupt and they try to take me down. and it is this sense where the president and his personal attorney have been arguing that, in fact, it was ukrainian collusion with the democrats and the clinton campaign, not russian collusion with the trump campaign that should be the focus of investigation. in addition, mr. giuliani has been trying to push for further vista geisha and of former vice preside

with the ukraine. it would appear the trump administration has been trying to make headway on that front for russia too. "the new york times" made kind of an offhand reference to that this weekend when they reported that president trump has, quote, quietly been urging a deal that would pave the way for a removal of western sanctions on moscow over their ongoing conflict in ukraine. obviously the removal of those western sanctions is, quote, long a goal of president putin's. president trump himself said as much back in august when he was asked whether or not he planned to invite the ukrainian president to the white house. he said at the time, quote, i think he's going to make a deal with president putin and he will be invited to the white house. meaning, yeah, i would like ukraine and russia to make a deal, i would like the ukrainian president to go make a deal with vladimir putin. then that guy can come to the white house. why does the u.s. president want ukraine to make a deal with russia over russia

william taylor is an expert on ukraine. he served as george w. bush's ambassador to ukraine. and after donald trump forced out marie yovanovitch as ambassador, william taylor is serving as acting ambassador to ukraine. he testified for ten hours today under oath about what rudy giuliani and donald trump have been doing with ukraine, yes, william taylor delivered testimony devastating to president trump. one freshman member of the committee hearing his testimony today said after the first couple hours of william taylor's testimony that it was, quote, my most disturbing day in congress so far. that congressman will join us in a moment. william taylor's testimony could make the impeachment of donald trump bipartisan. his testimony could turn some republican votes in the house of representatives and it might be the testimony that convinces republican senator mitt romney to vote to convict and remove donald trump from office. donald trump's very rich and totally incompetent and unqualified ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland, could face perjury charges after william

here for example as ukraine's national and t. corruption bureau chief sit nick recorded bragging about how he helped hillary clinton during the 2016 election. yes i helped not trump but hillary i helped her who really belongs to the cohorts of politicians who comprise the huge money in the us both in the u.s. and in the entire world for us that is sort of better oh you could definitely film sensitive 3 with these guys but the audio is real confirmed by ukraine's attorney general it was mr sit nick by the way who published dirt on trump's campaign manager in 2016 in a real lost anyway but the fellow tried so what if you don't have guns to sell or elections to win whatever for. example daddy wants to get his young boy a nice cushy job where he didn't have to do much well ukraine's the help booth john biden's son and john kerry's stepson landed executive jobs that are ukrainian energy companies now strap yourself in hunter biden earned $50000.00 a month 50000 in a country where the average wage is a few $100.00 and you know what in

involving ukraine and joe biden. >> did you ask the ukraine to investigate joe biden?tually found facts that are true. >> shut up, moron, shut up -- >> just be careful about what you say. i asked you did you look at joe biden? >> you don't know what you're talking about, idiot. >> let me finish. >> keep your lying mouth shut. >> you did ask ukraine to look into joe biden? >> of course i did. >> you just said you didn't. >> giuliani's theory was based on one fact, that biden, as vice president, had used his authority to push for the removal of ukraine's prosecutor general, victor shokin. but giuliani went on to claim that biden got rid of shokin in order to protect his own son, hunter, and the burisma energy company. >> when giuliani says that vice president biden removed shokin to protect his son, hunter biden? is he right? >> it's [ bleep ]. from first word to the last word. >> did people here in ukraine, investigators like yourself, anti-corruption activists, think that shokin was doing a good job that he was effective? >> absolutely not. shokin was corrupt, ineffect

we are left it in the ukraine. they say you lecture us on corruption and your idiot press can't figure out we were paying off joe biden and what you think the chinese say? they were paying $1.5 billion to this kid who were buying the vice president. >> appreciate your coming on. >> you should do something about it. >> ahead, a couple extraordinary news conferences. immediate reaction to donald trump inviting china and ukraine to investigate biden. i've always had a knack for finding things... ...colon cancer,to be exact. and i find it noninvasively... no need for time off or special prep. it all starts here... you collect your sample, and cologuard uses the dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers. you can always count on me to know where to look. oh, i found them! i can do this test now! ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. covered by medicare and most major insurers >> many journalists were stunned ever weeklong frenzy where donald trump's call with ukraine at leader, he went in front of the camer

ambassador to ukraine.thing else, her testimony today appears from the outside to have been thorough. she emerged from that closed door deposition after nine plus hours. she didn't get out until 7:40 p.m. eastern time. joining us now is tom melinowski. he served as an assistant secretary of state in both the state department and national security council. thank you for making time tonight. i know it's been a long day. >> thank you so much. >> i was struck by the congressman said there about how it was eight hours that went like a new york second that he seemed -- he seemed moved by the testimony. how would you describe the testimony today? >> i agree. you know, we spent nine hours with a diplomat, a patriot of tremendous courage and integrity who answered questions honestly, thoroughly and who set an example today that not only should you obey a legally binding subpoena, but you can. you can be a career civil servant or foreign service officer and despite the president's efforts to deny you the opportunity

ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch. so they give tons of money to this pac that's supporting sessions' re-election and pledge to raise tens of thousands of dollars for his re-election. they get a meeting with sessions and say you've got to help us get this ambassador out of there. and in fact republican congressman pete sessions makes good on his end of the bargain. nbc news has obtained the letter that congressman sessions sent to secretary of state mike pompeo shortly after that meeting with these guys who have now been arrested. in that letter congressman sessions in fact tells the secretary of state that he should, quote, consider terminating her ambassadorship as soon as possible. so again, i mean the scheme here for which president trump is being kbeechimpeached is a simp thing. but in order to enact this scheme where he's going to get help from ukraine against the democrats, a lot of different people had to play their part. this is something he did on his own. he put the u.s. government to work to enact this sche

policy in ukraine. on the one him the departure of volcker could have played a positive role because indeed from the russian perspective the role of all code was apparently negative right walker prevent the implementation of the means and persuaded ukraine to continue to subsidize the implementation on the other camp in the current. situation of scandal i truly don't believe that the departure of walter will matter for the american pull the seat towards ukraine because there is no policy in conditions of the current scandal impeachment investigation the american policy towards ukraine will be paralyzed it will be ultimately dependent on the believe that goal domestic political interplay on the huge towards the impeachment in these conditions there is nothing that washington can or would want to do viz of ukraine i think the white house will try its best you know to be in that cell from the ukraine the i'm go in general you know the the absence of the interlocutor will not change the situation to read th

and issues of corruption in ukraine.s all we discussed. the simple truth is that those are the same issues that the president raised with president zelensky in their call. anyone who looks at the president's transcript will see that the president was raising issues that were appropriate, that were of genuine interest to the american people. >> greg miller is national security correspondent to "the washington post" i'm such a fan of all your reporting but this story jumps off the page, how is it going to land with the guy in the office with no corners? it seemed to me that pence did a little bit of dancing today. >> yeah, i mean, i think he's in a tough spot. he has so far in this presidency walked this tightrope where he sort of is supporting the president at every step but simultaneously keeping some distance away from him, enough distance that he hasn't been terribly tainted by all these scandals. i think in our story today we were trying to write about just how difficult it is to kind of accept that assertion of obje

we stood strong with ukraine. we are standing strong with president zelensky.the american people would expect, president trump wanted to make sure that ukraine was advancing the reform agenda, reforming and ending corruption. that our allies in europe were doing more. >> [indiscernible] -- the bidens was at least a part of the reason the aid was held up? >> i have never discussed the issue of the bidens with president zelensky. what i can tell you is that all of our discussions internally, when the president and my office with ukraine were focused on the broader issues of european support. >> you are interested in seeing the bidens investigated? [inaudible] >> that is your question. let me be very clear. the issue of aid and our efforts with regard to ukraine were from my experience in no way connected to the very legitimate concern the american people have about corruption that took place, about things that happened in the 2016 election or about the issue that former vice president biden had his son on the board of a major energy company in ukraine at a time w

supported ukraine. he denied them a white house visit until he could promise he could get what he wanted. why is that dangerous? what can you tell the american people about why it's important for us to support ukraine? >> first of all, look what he did. he, obviously, used taxpayer funded assistance, passed by the congress on a bipartisan basis, to both threaten and intimidate the new president of ukraine, to investigate his political opponents for the purpose of advancing his own re-election. now, that has so many elements in it and it's one of the reasons why i think it's broken through to the american people. it also is troubling that ukraine has been a subject of constant pressure from vladimir putin and the russian interests in ukraine. so you have the trump administration, the president, the vice president, others, actually pressuring a new president who has a part of his country invaded and occupied by russian troops, and putting this poor new president in this vise. you think you are going to ge

the presidents communications with ukraine's president.ensky said there was no pressure. his words were no one published. a clear reading of the transcript shows there was no quid pro quo in the president's call. the american people should read the transcript. and they do well to do that. the chairman of the intelligence committee manufactured a version of the transcript and read it into the record. we also see the chairman of the committee misrepresented his context with the missile blower -- with the whistleblower and repeated interviews. the american people need to look no further than the plain reading of the transcript. there was no pressure, no quid our focus was entirely on the president's desire to see europe contribute more to ukraine security and sovereignty and to see president zelensky make good on his own election commitment to pass significant corruption reforms in ukraine. we have been pleased with the progress he has made on that front. we are pleased the aid that we provided is continuing to provide security assistance to

to ukraine. it's not at all clear why this state department needed an envoy to ukraine when we already had an ambassador to ukraine. but it seems one of kurt volker's missions was to translate trump to the new ukrainian president. that means volker was in frequent contact with bill taylor who became, in effect, the acting ambassador in ukraine after donald trump removed the ambassador who rudy giuliani did not find to be cooperative enough to help the trump campaign by investigating joe biden. the "new york times" reports this smoking gun, he disclosed a set of texts in september in which bill taylor, the top american diplomat and ukraine alluded to mr. trump's decision earlier in the summer to freeze a military aid package to the country. he told mr. sondland and mr. volker i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. that is a very smokey gun in writing. a member of the trump administration's diplomatic core, the highest ranking diplomat in ukraine puts

all of a sudden, ukraine. we go from russia to ukraine. how did that happen? the democrats, nancy pelosi and six committee chairman, i call them her pullet bureau are running rough shod trying to, issuing letters they call subpoenas if they were not replied to in a certain given time, they claim that to be obstruction of justice, it is not a court. they mean obstruction of the house. they are trying to set up the president and set up the administration, the demands are onerous. the process, you see, is ahistorical. and president's counsel wrote a letter to the members of the house, they said, you deny the president the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witness to receive transcript of testimony to have access to evidence. to have counsel is present, in other words basic due process, even though this is not a criminal matter, cereal murdersl murder -- serial murderers get more due process, terrorists get more due process than president of united states coequal subpoena power, i did some research. and i found something, look at this. what in the world is

diplomat in ukraine at the time. to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. gordon sondland, the u.s. ambassador to the eu responds, bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump's intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going adopt the transparency and reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. sondland then asked to take it offline. quote, i suggest we stop the back and forth by text. congressman mike quigley is on the intelligence committee. his staff were among those that interviewed the source of those texts, kurt volcker. congressman quigley, i'll get to the texts in a minute. your take on rachael bade's reporting that volker testified a meeting between ukraine's president and trump was contingent on the ukrainian president agreeing to make a statement regarding the bidens. >> i want to make clear i have read the text multiple times now. i was not there for m

nancy pelosi took money from ukraine lobbyists. they have no problem with it when it salacious of their campaign and jobs for their benefit when asking ukraine for dirt and when it's funding a dossier to bring trump down. in any case, elected leaders always wear their government hat and that of a politician. every conversation, every meeting there thinking about politics. the idea that donald trump can make an abuse of power is a joke. they all do it. i thought myself with president obama and david cameron. today, the impeachment fanatics recite dirt on the protocol arrival but with ukraine and biden it's not just any rival. if he was asking them to look for andrew yang who worked on one of his startups that would be different. we will laid out for you in detail in tonight swamp watch. is the former vice president and his family acted correctly in another country. [inaudible] the reason there so up in arms about it is that it's exposing a central feature of their swampy business model. what's not okay is using government policy and

the 1st sight you wouldn't take ukraine for a land of opportunity. unless you're into peddling weapons the javelin system will help ukraine build its long term defense capacity to defend its sober instance oratorial integrity in order to meet its national defense requirements now ain't that just the american dream selling weapons to a nation that can barely afford to keep itself warm in the winter and not just any weapons the javelin by far the most expensive and its class more than $200000.00 for the launcher and a rocket was uneasy though it took a concentrated push by arms manufacturers lobbyists and politicians to overturn a ban on lethal weapon sales to ukraine and this man this man was at the center of it the significance of this is that we lifted the old your arms did provide anti-tank weapons. and now we're prepared to treat you crazy like any other normal country which is just look at this face doesn't it radiate honesty and empathy but appearances can be deceptive kurt was naughty kurt had a little side gig going on that was all hush hush t

biden was in ukraine. of the timeline people question. let's talk about this. when it comes to how people are treated let's listen to adam schiff on working with foreign dirt when it comes to donald trump. >> what is the nature? >> we will be back in touch with our staff to make arrangements to obtain these materials. heather: they are okay with getting foreign dirt. >> what adam schiff is saying is thank you for providing what you say you are providing. i will have my team look into this and he didn't run with it. when people engage members of congress with dirt or whistleblowing, and i was congressional staff. it's not a simple job and members of congress by doing what he did, not saying i ignore it and i will have my people look at it and he didn't do anything with it. heather: we appreciate you joining us. thank you. the time is 20 minutes after the top of the hour. elizabeth warren wants to break up facebook if she becomes president, mark zuckerberg is ready for a fight. >> i would bet we would have a

military aid to ukraine. from the johns hopkins school of international study, this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> i'd like to welcome everybody to the russia-you're asia seminar. we do it every two weeks, as you know, and given the speaker that we have and the topic is going to deal with. we have the pleasure of welcoming c-span here which is broadcasting this event as far as i can tell live on c-span2. i'm charles gotti. i organize these seminars and i say very little because i want the speaker to have as much time as possible. just to give you a little background. he hails from massachusetts and the soviet studies at harvard, before that, he got his va also in soviet studies and political science from tufts university. at harvard he studied with the legendary adam olamb and in tufts with solitary and old friend of mine, indeed. >> he left washington after, ana professor at -- in florida, at -- at florida international university, and that's a move that is shrouded in mystery, because few people do that, but

ukraine ukraine what partisan hacks in biased media won't tell you is why ukraine has become part of america's political drama you'll only hear it here on crossfire. cross talking some real news i'm joined by my guest dmitri bobbitt she's a political analyst and editor at innocent me internet media project and in london we crossed alexander material he is a writer on legal affairs as well as the editor in chief of the duran dot com all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate alexander let me go to you in london i'm so pleased to have you in on the program here just the 2 of you because it gives you more time to talk about a story that is much more complex and longer than audiences in the west are being given by the mainstream media everyone is talking about the 2016 election well i would go a little bit further back and the very least i go back to 2014 with the illegal overthrow of a democratically elected government with the support of the e.u. and the united states now the predicate of all of this the larger the

policy towards ukraine since ukraine's independent from the soviet union has been fairly consistent in pushing ukraine on anticorruption reform. that's been one of the corner stones of u.s. messaging in ukraine for decades, and that's been fairly consistent, both under barack obama and under president trump, and you know, under the obama administration this was very much carried by his ambassadors to ukraine who have long played a strong role in kiev in working with politicians there to try and convey the message of, look, you need to clean up corruption. >> what was then vice president joe biden's role? >> so joe biden was obama's point person in ukraine, and he really carried that message for the president. he also oversaw the u.s. response -- perhaps not the u.s. response but the u.s. messaging when it came to conflict in ukraine, the russian annexation of crimea, it was 2014 where you had russia lops off a chunk of ukraine, annexes crimea and then the war begins in eastern ukraine in the spring of that year. it was the first hot war in the region in an extremely long time, and you

a secure and prosperous and democratic ukraine. starts in a city in the world it will slowly new democracy just go to. the with. some of them but obviously the funds had to keep coming and the conflict had to keep going again. and more bloody and deadly. so mayst. as parties from both sides were using more sophisticated and lethal weapons. that's why do you. want. us. to do. you know. the world seemed too busy welcoming this new democracy in kiev. to notice what was being done as it spread its wings over the country. many in southern ukraine had been viewing the revolution with concern. and an anti mind on movement formed in the city of odessa in early january 2014 the protesters set up their camp in front of the trade union house a building which would soon become a monument to a massacre of its own it's difficult to overestimate the importance of odessa it is strategically located on the black sea and it's ukraine's largest seaport it's not surprising that ukraine's new authorities were watching the situation unfolding there with

in ukraine he also worked for the b.g. are a huge and powerful lobbying group which surprise lobbies for a theatre the company that manufactures javelin missiles and will make millions by selling them to ukraine kurt unfortunately resigned in september aside from the whole potentially corrupt thing with b g r and greatly and he was also embroiled in the trump ukraine scandal speaking of which trump has recently put on hold almost $400000000.00 in military aid to ukraine it leaves out. a scheme to use the leverage of the presidency you use the leverage of the. vital military assistance to a foreign nation. to provide or tame dirt on a political opponent it's hard to imagine a more serious set of allegations than those contained in the complaint cheerlead they can't all be rotten this is adam adam has a much friendlier face than kurt adams seems genuinely concerned about ukraine alas adam doesn't seem to be any better see among adams sponsors is a fellow named igor pasternak who makes a lot of money on military contracts wit

trump was up to in ukraine.they represented that bipartisan policy and it's not a surprise to me that they're the first people who are going to testify in front of that impeachment inquiry. the last thing, rachel that's really important is the republicans used to be more hawkish about this. the criticism we got in the obama administration from people like lindsey graham was we weren't doing enough to support ukraine. now republicans have done a 180, saying there's nothing wrong with this call transcript. it's a window into the cynicism of the republican party. how much they flipped on this issue just to protect trump. >> and ben, as we go forward and head into these next couple of days with mike pompeo essentially threatening that he's going to try to block those officials you were just describing from speaking to congress, we don't exactly know how this is going to go with these depositions and when they're going to happen and who exactly is going to show up and how much the state department is going to do to t

ukraine should be recognized. i don't think anyone is questioning ukraine's independence except for mr. putin, perhaps and people around him. a foreign policy success at ukraine's expense would not be a foreign policy success. i think the blowback from the congress, from the think tank, university community, everywhere , would be so severe that if the president tried to push some resolution that came at ukraine's expense -- i think that in order for it to be labeled a success, it cannot come at ukraine's expense. on crimea, turkey could make some claims on crimea since until mid- 18 century. in 54, it was given to the ukrainians. socialist republic. acknowledgment of agreement of that. ninety-four and 97 with the russia ukraine friendship treaty it is only mr. putin and those like him that want to eat erase all of that and claim that crimea actually belongs to russia. if we allow that to happen, then we are losing. in my view, the international community should never recognize crimea as part of russia. we never re

but ukraine is dependent on the fees it's just for gas transport via the pipelines running through ukraine and russia wants to get rid of these fees and the dependency on ukraine and therefore is building these new pipelines around ukraine the turks remain in the south and north stream in the north battling that thank you very much. hong kong's leader carrie lam says the city is a risk of falling into recession as it enters its 5th month of pro-democracy protests over its numbers have dropped and retail businesses as they have been forced to shut of their doors doing protests and rallies. after 5 months of pro-democracy protests some people in hong kong are tired of the demonstrations and blocked roads the city state's divided community is on edge many were looking to carry lamb speech and choose day to see whether she would years the protesters demands she issued a warning things you don't often need all that there is a large likelihood that for the year 2019 we will see a full year recession that means we will reach 0 to one percent growth so this situation is highly serious in addition

so i got ukraine. and i remember going over, convincing our team, others to convince that we should be providing for loan guarantees. i went over i guess the 12, 13th time to kiev and i was supposed to announce that there's another $1 billion loan guarantee. i had gotten a commitment from porshenchingo and from yatsen that they would take action against the state prosecutor, and they didn't. so they said they were walking out and said, i'm not going to -- we're not going to give you the billion dollars. they said you have no authority. you're not the president. the president said. i said call him. i said i'm telling you you're not getting the $1 billion. i'm going to be leaving here, i think it was six hours, i'm leaving in six hours. if the prosecutor is not fired you're not getting the money. well, son of a --, he got fired. and they put in place someone who was solid. at the time. well, still so they made some genuine substantial changes institutionly and with people. but one of the three institutio

-ukraine relations. volodymyr zelensky had just been elected president and ukraine remained at war with russia. as the summer approached, a new ukrainian government would be seated, parliamentary elections were imminent and the ukrainian political trajectory would be set for the next several years. i cared about ukraine's future and the important u.s. interests there. so when secretary pompeo asked me to go back to kiev, i wanted to say yes but it was not an easy decision. the former ambassador, masha yovanovitch, had been treated poorly caught in a web of machinations both in kiev and in washington. i feared those problems were still present. when i talked to her about accepting the offer, however, she urged me to go both for policy reasons and for the morale of the embassy. before answering the secretary, though, i consulted both my wife and a respected former senior republican official who's been a mentor to me. i'll tell you my wife in no uncertain terms strongly opposed the idea. the mentor counsele

security assistance to ukraine. so a lot of document requests coming from capitol hill as they seek to move rapidly in their impeachment inquiry, wolf. >> we'll see what happens. the clock is ticking. right now lauren fox, thank you. >>> let's go to the white house. our chief white house correspondent is there. jim, what is the reaction to the whirp wind developments. >> reporter: it seems the stonewalling continues. president trump threatening to fire off a letter from the white house saying that white house lawyers will not cooperate until house democrats hold a vote on their impeachment inquiry. we are just finding out now that letter may not be coming from the white house until monday at the earliest. and that there is a bit of an internal debate going on inside of the president's impeachment team as to whether or not to fire off that letter. as for the request for information from vice president mike pence, his office has just responded with a statement saying that this request for documents and other informati

and so the security of ukraine, the budding democracy in ukraine, is a really important issue to me, and to see a president just put our vital interests like that at risk for his own political ends is something that we just can't stand for as americans. >> congressman, is it as clear as what we've described that ambassador bill taylor believes that military aid for american ally, ukraine, who is, as you just described, our buffer, our democratic ally there, in russia's neighborhood, that he testified today that military aid for that country was tied to a public commitment to investigate burisma? >> you know, i apologize, nicolle, i heard just now while i was listening that you all evidently have this testimony. i apologize. i'm not going to talk about what he said at all. i really respect this process. what i can tell you is that the -- it's -- the case is overwhelming and it really ratifies the process we're going through. very soberly having witness after witness come in and build the fact case about what actually transpired and as other people have said, there were, you know, a tr